HB NOV 16
1921 Wich the complimente
172
.M588
Maynard M. Mit
Biology and Industry
By
MAYNARD M. METCALF
THE ORCHARD LABORATORY
OBERLIN, OHIO
ОСТ. 1921
Biology and Industry
By MAYNARD M. METCALF
(Read before the Cleveland Council of Sociology, Jan. 31, 1921)
Knickerbocker, in writing his famous History of New York, be-
gan with a discussion of the universe, of which, of course, New York
is a major portion, and then proceeded to a disquisition upon uni-
verses in general. Perhaps, before coming to our main theme we may
spend a few minutes discussing certain universals which have a bear-
ing upon our theme.
1
Thinking may be accurate within the field of the data and the
processes it sets itself to consider, and yet may be inadequate
thinking, and its inadequacy may be due to one or more of several
things, some of which are rather prone to characterize the thinking
of even the best of us human folk and to vitiate our conclusions,
even though our argument, so far as it goes, may be sound. Two of
these things that so customarily cause our thinking and our con-
clusions to be untrustworthy, we might term narrowness and shal-
lowness, but let us not put too much of disrespect into these terms.
Narrow thinking or shallow thinking may be accurate so far as
concerns the data considered and may be very imposing in its
marshalling of these data. As hypothetical thinking it is of great
value, the hypothesis being that the data used are the only data
germane to the discussion in hand. Such reasoning, if sound, says
"If the data we are considering are all that should be taken into
account in this matter (whatever it may be), then the following con-
clusions seem to be indicated." Such thinking is of great value, but
it needs always to be tested to see if its major premise is true, to be
sure that we have included in our view all the phenomena and facts
which are germane to the matter under consideration.
Probably the qualities of conservatism and prejudice in human-
kind are chiefly responsible, along with ignorance, for our proneness
to narrow thinking. President Eliot once said, in substance, "The
conservative is a wholly useless animal." Eliot himself is gloriously
free in his thinking and I have great respect for him and his dicta,
yet, while recognizing the truth underlying his statement quoted, I
cannot but dissent from it to a degree at least. It is true that the
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yeast in human life and human society is free thinking, untrammelled
thinking, impersonal thinking, and while it is true that all human
progress has been due to such thinking activated by the energy of
men devoted to living and getting others to live the conclusions
reached by such free thinking, still the conservative has played his
part, though, of course, in a wholly negative way.
Let an ordinary motor boat illustrate the point. Generated and
guided energy could not push the boat along its chosen course if it
were not for the resistance of the water to the screw and the rudder.
Conservatism makes something to overcome. A progressive, a re-
former, has reason to be discouraged when others too readily agree
with him. He must feel as I imagine a motor boat might feel when
its screw kicks out into the air and races, finding nothing to bite
upon and push against. Of course, faith in one's thinking is the
positive element which furnishes the motive power, but opposition
is needed to make the faith prove itself. Opposition is productive
of thoughtful thoroughness in the reformer. The function of the
conservative, while negative and inglorious, is yet essential.
“One of the chief services conservatism renders to human society
lies in the difficulty which it presents to the entrance and adoption of
new and strange conceptions or lines of conduct. The new, whether
new in idea or merely new in emphasis, must fight and must find
itself and prove itself in this initial struggle, before it can prevail.
This struggle for existence among social ideas is the scientific experi-
mental laboratory for society, and the whole social experimental
method is dependent upon the natural human conservatism which
causes and makes intense this struggle through which social ideas
must pass to be accepted."*
Controlled movement is secured anywhere in nature only through
resistence. The contraction of the biceps muscle must be opposed by
the resistence of the triceps, if we are to make a controlled and direc-
ted movement of the arm rather than a flop. You can't safely guide a
horse with one rein. You need the two opposed reins to guide him
along the desired course. Human society is regulated by opposed
tendencies and forces just as truly as is muscular movement or the
(*) From Metcalf, The Scientific Spirit, Science, N. S., vol.
XLIX, No. 1276, pp. 551-558, June 13, 1919.
4
+
horse's course. Socialism must balance and be balanced by individ-
ualism. Radicalism must oppose and be resisted by conservatism.
Faith must meet and be made trustworthy by doubt. In every case
we need the opposed ideas and tendencies if we are to have controlled
progress. This thought is suggested as an antidote to the discour-
agement and impatience we so tend to feel at the lethargy and slow
progress of human society.
But conservatism's only divine purpose, prejudice's only fate is
to be conquered in the end. The conservative is one who is in
accord with the customs and conventions of the community. He is
one who does not really think, that is, think for himself, do his own
thinking. He may be a very scholarly man. He may be widely
read. He may know accurately what many other men have thought.
But he cannot really think for himself and remain a conservative,
remain long in agreement with all the customs of society. Thought,
independent thought, is like yeast; it ferments, it raises things.
Among other things it raises trouble.
But it is when the waters are troubled that, like the Pool of
Siloam, they have healing power. Today the waters are troubled.
The peoples are longing, striving for change. Changes are impending,
and change is instinctively disagreeable to most men.
I wish to urge
that we distrust the inevitable oppositions to change, as in large
measure due to mere conservaticm, and that we endeavor in our own
thinking to get outside of custom, to assume a detached attitude and
to view all proposals upon their real merits without regard to the
extent to which they run counter to the things we are accustomed to.
We have perhaps dwelt long enough upon the matter of narrow
thinking due to conservatism and prejudice. May we say a few words.
about shallow thinking, thinking that leaves out of account some of
the more fundamental things, while dealing, perhaps in a scholarly
way, with a more superficial body of data? I might as well say right
out that I wish to illustrate this type of thinking with the science
of economics, which seems to me one of the conspicuous examples of
a great body of digested and arranged data and conclusions, from
which have usually been omitted the most fundamental data germane
to the subject.
Economics is sometimes defined as the science of wealth, and,
as a matter of fact, in its development and in that development of
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5
industry which has been founded upon it, economics has been so
treated. I wish to challenge the usual science of wealth as a founda-
tion for the organization and conduct of industry. I wish to chal-
lenge it as leaving out of account certain biological phenomena which
are not only germane to industrial problems, but are fundamental in
these problems.
In the usual treatment of economics, the soundness or unsound-
ness of any proposition is measured by its relation to the production
or the conservation of wealth. Wealth is the standard of value, the
measure, the criterion of final consideration.
Against wealth as the measure of value in human society, includ-
ing industry, I wish to place a more biological measure of value.
I would like to state the problem in more fundamental terms. I
would make the question before us-"What organization and con-
duct of industry best promotes human welfare"; not stopping with
the question of the production of wealth, but going deeper to the
question of producing well-being.
What, then, is human welfare? Upon what is it dependent?
How shall it be promoted? Increase of wealth may or may not pro-
mote welfare. Growing complexity in social processes and organiza-
tion may or may not produce human happiness. What is the funda-
mental, the ultimate measure of value from man's own standpoint?
Not wealth, not progress, but human well-being, human happiness.
It is hard to find just the word that will cover that inner satisfac-
tion in a man's soul, which is the finally good thing, the only thing
that is good in itself, not good because it promotes something else.
Everything good, in ultimate analysis, is good because it tends to
produce in men's souls this feeling of satisfaction, of happiness. That
is the final good from man's standpoint.
From an outsider's viewpoint, to the being in Mars, other
things in human life may be more interesting or more important.
The scientific interest in human behavior or in human progress may
be greater than the scientific interest in human happiness. But our
discussion is from the standpoint of human welfare, human happi-
ness, that inner satisfaction, comfort, peace, uplift, call it what you
will, for which we have no adequate comprehensive word or phrase.
This is a psychological, a biological phenomenon, far deeper
than we reach in any discussion of matters of mere wealth, and we
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must not leave our thinking of industrial problems upon the more
superficial plane of wealth, but must constantly carry it deeper, to
the ultimate criterion by which all questions of human good must be
measured, the criterion of human welfare.
Now, society is engaged in many and varied activities, but from
our present point of view the making of men is the chief business of
society. In the manufacture of men it is important to manufacture
whole men, wholesome men, not cripples and defectives. It is import-
ant to realize the complexity of man's nature, the diversity and
breadth of his fundamental instincts, and to give fair and full play
to all essential phases of his personality.
It is a widely evidenced biological principle that use tends to-
ward development and growth, and that disuse tends toward atrophy.
No fundamental capacity of a man's nature can remain unexercised
without consequent atrophy. To avoid making men who will be
aborted or distorted in some phases of their nature, we must so
organize society and its activities as to give to all men an opportunity
to bring into play all essential phases of their nature. There are
many fundamental qualities and capacities which should thus be
given opportunity for exercise. Among them are:--
(1) The capacity and desire to exert one's powers. This is closely
associated with pride in carrying responsibility.
(2) The instinct of workmanship, which apparently is com-
pounded of satisfaction in doing and in carrying responsibility, and
of aesthetic appreciation of good product. The aesthetic sense, in
greater or less development is evidenced, among men of all sorts and
even in the very early remains of prehistoric human society. Satisfac-
tion in a good job is deep-seated in human nature, whether it be the
drawing of a mammoth on the roof of a cave, the making of a perfect
arrow point, the building of a modern bridge, or the giving of a uni-
versity lecture.
(3) Love of family and the desire of social relations in general
is a fundamental instinct.
(4) We may mention the instinct of duty toward others, the
realization that others' welfare is just as valuable as one's own, and
an instinctive urge to promote the well-being of all, including one's
self. And there are numerous other fundamental instincts. We need
not attempt to catalog them. All are real phenomena, as real
7
!
and as definite as man's visceral or skeletal structure. All these
spiritual instincts must be brought into normal, wholesome play if
we are to avoid the making of men who are atrophied in certain
phases of their capacities and appreciations.
Well, as to industry from this point of view. Industry is
society's chief occupation. Government, legislation, the activity of
courts, education, the pursuit of knowledge, the pursuit of aesthetics,
religious activities, sports-all combined do not receive so much at-
tention, are not given so much energy, as is expended upon industry,
the producing of the physical bases for human life.
Now, industrial questions have mostly been considered from the
economic standpoint and not from the humanistic point of view. I
believe there is need of greater relative emphasis upon certain bio-
logical aspects of industrial problems. The purely economic view is
inadequate, and one naturally feels that the present disturbed and
unsatisfactory condition in the fields of production, distribution and
consumption is due in part to a more or less wrong method of
approach to these problems. We have lost sight, in considerable
measure, of the fact that welfare, not wealth, is the goal. The chief
thing we are producing is not manufactured goods, but men. The
chief product of industry, as of all other social activities, is men, and
it is important to scrutinize the processes and the results to be sure
we are turning out a desirable product, that we are turning out men
of a sort to have in themselves and to promote in others those inner
satisfactions which are the ultimate measure of value. A lumber
industry which produces much lumber and many Bolsheviks is appar-
ently less desirable socially than one which produces less lumber but
whose human product is more wholesome.* The biological, human-
istic, point of view should receive greater relative emphasis.
Our present industrial system is psychologically wrong, deeply
wrong, in its influence upon the character of the men engaged in all
phases of industry, whether in production, distribution or consump-
tion, whether as laborers, managers or investors, and there must be
fundamental change. The influence, the ever bearing pressure, to-
ward a wrong psychological reaction must be so changed as to make
(*) It is not intended to imply that improving the human pro-
duct would actually decrease the volume of manufactured goods.
Doubtless just the opposite is true.
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the organization and conduct of industry tend in itself to draw men to
a right spiritual response to their work and to their fellows.
During the war we got such a response. Putting the job through
for the sake of the country and the world was the deep purpose in
all our thought. The perpetuation and strengthening of this same
spirit and its introduction into all the life of the people is the real
goal to be sought in all social life and especially in the organization
and conduct of industry. Anything short of this does not solve our
problem.
In testing the soundness of any industrial idea, such as efficiency
engineering, for example, we should not stop merely with the question
“Will it result in a larger product of manufactured goods," but we
should be sure that the plan adopted is so chosen and so handled as
to promote a well rounded life and an inner satisfaction in the work-
er. Efficiency must be measured by its product in human lives, not
by its product in manufactured goods.
We have had the habit of stopping with the manufactured goods,
with the wealth produced, and assuming that the production of
wealth is, as a matter of course, productive of human welfare. The
plain fact of the case is that the possession of wealth does not tend
at all to produce happiness, soul satisfaction, in the possessor. We
have just had a most gigantic illustration of this fact. During the
last few years laborers have had higher wages and more wealth than
ever before dreamed of. Laborers have bought pianos and silk under-
wear and purchased homes and begun sending their children to col-
lege, but perhaps there has never been a time when laborers were
more discontented. No, the possession of money does n't bring,
does n't tend to bring, contentment.
This phenomenon needs a bit of analysis. What does produce
contentment, satisfaction, happiness, in a human soul? "A man's
life consisteth not in the abundance of the things that he hath."
Possession does not bring peace. Then what does bring happiness?
It comes chiefly, perhaps wholly, either from self-giving in friendship,
or from the expenditure of energy for purposes which we know are
worthy; and, strangely, it is the effort itself, especially if successful,
and not the accomplished result of successful effort, that produces in
our souls this sense of satisfaction. This isn't any preachment. It is a
9
bald statement of a plain scientific fact which is proven and reproven
both by experience and by observation. But this, one of the most
fundamental facts of human psychology, has not been properly evalu-
ated and has not had its deserved controlling influence upon the or-
ganization and conduct of industry.
But what am I driving at? What is the practical application?
Industry is for the sake of the worker, and other workers. And of
course, so far as we are worthy of consideration, we must all be
workers. Parasites need not be considered. Their fate is always
degeneration and we could not change it if we would.
I believe that, economically and biologically, industry must be
controlled by all the workers, if the work is to be efficient and if the
result of the work is to be the making of worthy men, worth-while
men.
Think of the matter just a moment from the economic point
of view and then from the humanistic, the biological, viewpoint.
We have already noted that the major part of human energy is
devoted to industry. The great bulk of the business of society is
this business of getting out raw materials and manufacturing and
distributing to the consumers the physical things upon which our
social life is founded. How absurd, how impossible of acceptance as
an ultimate solution of our industrial problem, is our present practise
of turning industry over to a group of men for their private con-
trol, giving them the privilege of making out of the job all that the
public can be made to stand for. And the fundamental absurdity is
just as great whether the controlling group is the capitalists alone,
or includes also the laborers.
A couple of winters ago, at a dinner of the Economic Society of
Boston, I heard Matthew Wohl, of the American Federa-
tion of Labor, speak with force and real eloquence. Among
other things, he said, in substance "Labor does not need
your pity or your help. Labor can fight its own battles. All we ask
of you is to keep your hands off. We can reach our own agreements
with capital, satisfactory agreements. Just keep your hands off and
we'll put the matter through to a settlement, and that too without
continual warfare between capital and labor. We can get together.
We'll reach a settlement, if you'll not interfere.” And so on, Wohl ap-
parently did n't have any realization that he had n't touched the
real point. He had described a way to abolish industrial warfare,
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but he had n't mentioned at all the interests of the most interested
party, the general public. He had merely showed how capital and
labor could get together and mulct the public. There are three
parties in industry, those who furnish the money, those who furnish
the labor, and those who use the manufactured product,* and the
dominant interest everywhere and always is that of the consumer.
Until this fact is clearly recognized and is made the basis of all our
organization and conduct of industry, we have n't really started to
solve our industrial problem.
See, for a moment, the absurd situation in which private control
of industry places us. "Over ninety per cent. of all men who engage
in business fail at some time in their lives." The great percentage of
failures shows the enormous risks in industry. Therefore the re-
wards to successful capital must be made proportionately great.
Society pays dearly in the first place for the failures, and then she
has to pay unreasonably for the successes. Capital cannot be led to
take the great risks without inducements adequate to the risks. The
present industrial system is clearly unsatisfactory. Society must
find some way to relieve industry from these great risks, and must
then organize the rewards upon a more reasonable basis. There are
two fundamental changes imperatively demanded in our economic
system: the first is public control of land and natural resources for
the benefit of all mankind; the second is such organization of essen-
tial industry as will allow society itself to carry at least the major
part of the risks of failure. In this way the risk of failure would be
greatly decreased, also the cost of industry, in the form of the returns
to the successful, would be greatly reduced, and (probably most val-
uable of all) there would result a better balanced human community
with less economic contrast between the extremes. It is futile to
attempt to dodge solving this difficult problem. We must come to
it eventually. Why not approach it now?
But what does this involve? It involves (1) paying fixed re-
turns for capital, (2) paying wages to labor, (3) having the ultimate
(*) Management is here included with labor.
(†) It is not meant that they go through bankruptcy, but that
they fail to reach success in the business and reap financial loss
rather than gain.
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control of the management in the hands of the public. This in con-
trast to the present system of turning industry over to capital to man-
age, with carte blanche to get from the job all they can force the
public to stand for. It means doing business, at least essential busi-
ness, on the basis of guaranteed bonds instead of stocks with fluctu-
ating dividends. This is a far-reaching change, one in which many
experimental mistakes will be made, mistakes entailing heavy losses.
No mind is keen enough to think through in advance the problems
that will arise. In this, as in all other fields, the experimental
method is the only method that will find the solution. Most of us
will see the mistakes and their disastrous results and will cry out
against the whole idea of experiment and change, desiring to return
to the good old ways. But we won't return. The experiments will
go on with their seven mistakes and their three successes and grad-
ually by devious ways we will approach nearer the goal of a reason-
able organization and conduct of society and its chief business,
industry.
There were, a year ago* in this country over three hundred large
business corporations in which labor shared with capital the control
of the business. This idea is growing. Mackenzie-King, the leader
of the Liberal party in Canada, goes a step further. He advocates
the control of essential industry by boards of directors, upon which
three parties shall have equal representation-labor, capital and the
community. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., in this country, is converted
to this same program. The Plumb plan for reorganization of the
railways goes further, taking the final step of placing the ultimate
control in the hands of the public.
Public control of the railways, with capital in the form of guar-
anteed bonds instead of common stock, seems practically sure to
come, though we don't know how soon or how late it will come. Soon
after this, will come public control of coal mines, oil wells, iron and
other mines, and water powers. We are already approaching large
scale public control of forests and lumber. After we have public
control of transportation and power and some of the major natural
resources, it is likely that public control of essential factories will
follow. We are moving in this direction.
(*) In the fall of 1920.
(†) Industry and Humanity.
1.2
As such public control comes, there will come with it the full
sharing by labor in the election of the management of the industries,
and such organization of the labor in the shops and mines as will
give them an opportunity and a stimulus to put their real selves,
their best selves, into the job, their job, theirs in reality, in a sense
not at all true today in the average shop. How many times greater
will then be the efficiency of labor? How much larger will be the
product per man-hour?
►
But this greater product of material from the mines and of
goods from the factories is not the major point. The most real
advance will be in the self-respect of the men, in our sense of public
service in our job, in the inner satisfaction we will reap from self-
respecting service which we will realize is worthy of the best effort
that is in us. The desire for self-promotion will then dictate a
course in line with that of public service, and the very organization
and conduct of industry will itself tend to produce and re-inforce the
spirit of service. We, as laborers, will no longer feel, rightly or
wrongly, that our work goes chiefly to increase the already undue
profits of private capital, and, as capitalists, we can no longer
scheme to mulct the public and get larger dividends. Selfishness
will not be the skeleton and the flesh and the skin of the whole
industrial system. Service will be the keynote, and better service
the means by which we will win larger personal reward.
Is this Utopian? Are we talking of the millennium? Call it
what you will. It is coming and it is coming more quickly than we
might think. Things move swiftly in these days. Ten years sees as
much progress today as a century saw in Renaissence times, or several
centuries in the dark ages.
And what is our part to play? It is up to us to do some clear
thinking, some unprejudiced thinking, to see what things tend toward
the goal, what things hinder, not to sit on the lid and confine the
seething forces in the cauldron till they gather steam for a great and
destructive explosion, but to co-operate wherever we can, utilize the
power the new spirit is creating and lead it into the proper channels
to do the work of reorganization and reconstruction through which
is to come a saner social and industrial structure. Even with this
spirit rather widely embodied, we may fail. In spite of all we can do,
the explosion may come. But there are indications that co-operation
13
in service may succeed in heading off those who would, from sheer
discontent, destroy with little or no thought for the fearfully difficult
task of rebuilding.
In closing may I ask attention to one very practical point?
Labor has lately been of poor quality. A full, square day's work
has n't usually been rendered for a day's wage. There is among
laborers a spirit more general, more deep than most of us adequately
realize, a spirit of what may be called negative sabotage, a spirit of
giving as little work as possible for the wage received, and business
as a whole has been managed for the sake of profits to the licensed
"owners" rather than with a view chieffy to public service, the so-
called owners of a business feeling free to limit it or discontinue it
if this be to their advantage, however much such action may
contravene the public welfare. The most pressing,
pressing, the
chief, present problem, probably the chief permanent prob-
lem, in industry is the problem of changing this spirit of sabotage
and replacing it by the spirit of productive service. Not producing
materials and manufactured goods, but producing the spirit of pro-
duction is the great industrial problem. There are many men who
can so direct and manage willing labor as to produce materials from
the mines and goods from the factories. That is an old-fashioned
problem which many men by training and experience are competent
to solve. This sort of efficient manager is not so rare. But the effic-
iency engineer of the next decade who is of most importance will
be the man who understands the spirit of a man and knows how to
guide the thought and feeling of laborer and capitalist as well and
is able to produce in those who are engaged in industry a productive
spirit, a spirit of service in their work. The problems of chief
interest in the near future in industry are problems of psychological
management. Not things, not stuffs, but men are the crux of the
industrial problem. And, as already emphasized, the only way to
create the spirit of productive service is so to organize industry that
all engaged in it shall share in it to the full extent of their ability.
Not only must each man get a fair deal and receive his economically
normal share of the product, he must carry his full share of the re-
sponsibility, if he is to give his real self loyally to the job.
THE ORCHARD LABORATORY
Oberlin, Ohio.
October, 1921.
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